Greg and Mandy's Travels

Today was our longest day of the trip. A one day, out and back road trip into Honduras to visit the famed Mayan ruins at Copan. Not many visitors come from the eastern side where the capital is, as its a very long and arduous trip over the mountains, so most of the visitors arrive from Guatemala, which is what we did.

A little bit about the Mayans. The Maya civilisation was noted for its hieroglyphic script – the only known fully developed writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas – as well as for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical systems.…

What a day to be in town! It is both the third Friday in Lent, and the 480th birthday of Antigua, so the place is a’bustling.

So let’s set the scene. You will recall from my previous ramblings that way back in the 1500s Spain, Portugal, France and England were vying for supremacy as empires, and they were attempting to conquer as much of the New World as they could to gain the riches and the prestige that comes with a large empire. Spain in particular was bringing back lots of the riches gained from their conquests in South America, but pirates were ruining the party and plundering the ships as they came back to Spain.…

One of the must see attractions in the Antigua region of Guatemala is Lake Atitlan. Most visitors head to the village of Panajachel, which is on the shores of the lake and base their activities around there.

The cheapest way to get there is actually to book an Uber, so that’s what we did. Whilst we waited, we grabbed some pastries and coffee for breakfast, then piled into our car and headed off. Despite only being 50 km away, all the navigation apps said that it would take around two hours to arrive. Actually, it took well over 2 1/2 hours by the time we went through roadworks and dodged breakdowns up and over the mountains.…

Had to check out of our plush Guatemala City hotel, but first we just had time to go down into the city centre and do a walking tour of the historical precinct. Guatemala is frequently shaken by earthquakes, and there have been a couple of very large ones that have destroyed swathes of the country. Wayback in 1773 there was a very large earthquake in Antigua, which was then the capital, and the government took the decision to relocate the capital to a more stable location in the what has now become known as Guatemala City. Unfortunately, Guatemala City itself has endured two very large earthquakes in the 20th century, the biggest being in 1976 when 23,000 people died.…

Well, it was time to leave Belize. Nice place for a holiday, but wouldn’t want to live here. Terrific for couples and adults without children, but not very child friendly. Very bar and doof-doof focussed. Any café or restaurant with an eight page menu will have the first six pages devoted to drinks. Eating seems to be kind of an afterthought here.

Wandered down to the ferry with our luggage, checked it in, then walked along the sand back to our coffee shop for a final breakfast.

Exited Belize the way we came. Took the ferry back to Belize City, a taxi out to the airport, and waited around for a small plane to fly us to Guatemala.…

OK. Time to underwhelm you with a couple of facts before we leave Belize.

Belize has the only Jaguar reserve in the world.

Many Belizeans avoid swimming in the ocean or rivers on Good Friday; it is viewed as bad luck.

After Hurricane Hattie, the capital city was moved to Belmopan. With just over 12,000 inhabitants Belmopan is the smallest capital city in the World.

There are no McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks or KFC in the entire country of Belize. Bother.

Enough, I hear you cry. So what did we do on our final day? Well, we explored the final corner of this small island – the area around ‘The Split’.…

It’s the age old problem for the tourist industry, isn’t it? Everybody wants to preserve the pristine vibe of their particular tourist spot, without having hordes of tourists and lots of development spoil it all. However, if you don’t keep up with the development, then you will be passed by either other tourist spots, or other tourist developers, who want to come in and take over. It’s the same here in Caye Caulker. Everybody wants to preserve the slow way of life and the relaxed vibe. However, you have to keep the infrastructure growing to provide water and rubbish facilities, and other things necessary to cope with thousands of tourists.…

Belize is poorer than I expected. It has the air of being reasonably prosperous under the British, but as they withdrew in the 60s and 70s it has all gone downhill from there.

A couple of random facts to give you the idea. This year they raised the minimum wage from AU$2.50 to AU$3.50 an hour.

Whilst the average annual salary of most jobs here in Belize rate middle of the table – around 150 out of 250 countries- the average wage of a teacher comes in at 220 out of 250 countries paying only AU$10,000. They are never going to crawl out of their hole when a teacher is paid less than a supermarket check out chick.…